


Broken Hearts Across The Floor

by piercethenightvale



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: Blackmail, Domestic Violence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, i'll tag things as they come up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-02-23 11:15:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13188909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piercethenightvale/pseuds/piercethenightvale
Summary: In ten minutes everything changes. In ten minutes, she's gone. In ten minutes he's lost her.





	1. Chapter 1

Spotted: Princess B returning to the Upper East Side from her honeymoon. Let’s see if trading in her Constance uniform for a tiara is all it’s cracked up to be. 

Dan almost didn’t call her. He’d spent the summer pretending Blair Waldorf (he refused to call her by any other name) didn’t exist. And even if he couldn’t do that, he tried to pretend she wasn’t on her honeymoon with a man he knew wasn’t right for her. But of course he couldn’t do that either.  
He had tried, Dan had really tried to stop this. He had been planting seeds in her head for months about how Louis wasn’t right for, about how he was right for her. but of course, Blair was so caught up in a Louis-Chuck love triangle that she didn’t even see Dan as an option. Serena had been right, Blair didn’t need another suitor, she needed a friend. Dan was a patient man, and if it took time for Blair to see that both of these men were nothing but selfish, narcissistic sociopaths, Dan was willing to wait. If he’d learned anything from Serena, it was that good things take time.  
But then she went through with it. Blair actually married him. it had made an so furious that he’d actually left the reception without even congratulating her. Dan couldn’t watch her throw her life away on someone like Louis Grimaldi.  
He had been halfway home when she called from the bathroom in tears. He had never heard a person sound so scared before, “Dan,” she said after a shaky, “I know I’m the last person you want to talk to right now, but I need you.”  
She hadn’t even finished the sentence before the cab was heading back to the church. A million thoughts ran through his head, but only one mattered. Blair realized she had made a mistake, and Dan was the one she called. Not Serena, or Nate or even Chuck. Dan Humphrey was the person she called when she was desperate. She still didn’t need a confession right now, but that knowledge brought him very close to confessing anyways.  
What he said instead was, “Don’t move, Blair, I will be there in ten minutes.” As it turned out, ten minutes was too long. By the time he got back, Blair and Louis were gone and he found Serena gushing about how happy they looked.  
A few hours and a million calls from a Dan, and he got a short text back. Calling you was a mistake. No matter how many times he called or texted her back, he got no response. Those ten minutes haunted Dan all summer. What could have possibly happened in the time between Blair calling Dan and Dan getting back to the church that made her change her mind? The possibilities were endless, but also any rational explanation eluded Dan. No matter how hard he thought about it, someone doesn’t go from wanting run away to leaving on her honeymoon happily in ten minutes.  
But none of that stopped Dan from obsessesing. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible must have happened, but he had no way of reaching her to find out. She had told them all weeks before that she’d have no service where she was going. But now that she was back in Manhattan… Dan tried, he really did. But it had only been a few hours after the gossip girl blast when Dan caved.  
He really wasn’t expecting her to answer. She was a married woman now, and a princess, and a socialite all at the same time; not to mention how they’d left things. He knew she was busy, so he didn’t expect her to answer the first try. What he didn’t expect was an automated message saying that the number had been disconnected.  
He tried again. And again. And again. But it was the same thing every time. This number has been disconnected, please select a new number and try again.  
Next he tried Serena, against his better judgement. Dan was sure she didn’t know about him and Blair, but she might suspect. Dan hadn’t told anyone what had happened at the wedding, not even Serena. He didn’t want to worry anyone, and he didn’t want anyone to think he was delusional. Even if they had looked happy, Dan would never be able to get Blair’s panicked tone out of his head. If he had to convince all their friends there even was a problem, he’d go crazy. So he’d pretended nothing was wrong, and hope maybe nothing would be. If he called her in a panic now after not being able to reach her only hours after her two month long honeymoon…? Well, it didn’t look very good. He called anyways.  
“Dan? Hi, how are you?” she asked.  
“Blair’s number is disconnected,” he replied skipping the pleasantries.  
“What?”  
“There was a blast saying she was back in New York, so I tried to call to, y’know, welcome her back. But the number’s been disconnected.”  
Serena swore under her breath, “That makes no sense”  
“Exactly, why would she change her number without-”  
“No, it doesn’t make sense that she’s back in Manhattan.”

Blair should’ve known she’d be on gossip girl the moment she got off the plane. As horrible as a honeymoon with a man she didn’t love, and evidently no longer loved her was, at least she didn’t have people tracking her every move. At least her misery wasn’t in the public eye. But there was a blast minutes after she returned to the Upper East Side.  
For the first time in a long time, she truly hated gossip girl. It was bad enough that she had brought this all on herself, but now her humiliation would be public. She wasn’t stupid, she knew she wasn’t as well loved as people liked to pretend she was. She knew there was an endless supply of social climbers waiting for her to fall. And after years of proving them wrong, she ws going to fall; and she was going to fall hard.  
Needless to say it had been an awful honeymoon. Even with the tape, and with all Blair had done since their engagement, when Louis and she were up at that alter, together and smiling, she thought it was all going to be okay. She was still raw from losing the baby and losing Chuck, but this was her fresh start. She had a new life to look forward to, one away from mean girls and Serena’s shadow and car accidents that made you lose everything. She thought she’d finally be happy.  
Then she found out who Louis truly was. He wasn’t the man she’d met in Paris last summer, or the one who followed her to New York. He was cruel, and manipulative and distrustful. He would marry her just to save face then divorce her when the time was right. She should have known.  
For the millionth time, she flashbacked to the wedding. To Louis telling her he no longer loved her. to her realizing she’d made the biggest mistake of her life but it was too late. To being told to smile for the cameras. To calling Dan. Dan, sweet, devoted Dan. Blair knew he’d do anything for her, even now. She didn’t know how she’d gone this long not truly seeing but once she had, she couldn’t go back to thinking of his as Brooklyn trash. She knew he’d come running if he called, and run he did. But it was too late, Louis found her first.  
“Honestly, Blair, can’t you keep yourself together?” he scolded, “You can cry all you want when we’re home.”  
“How dare you,” Blair said, someone maintaining an icy tone even as tears spilled down her cheeks, “Whatever embarrassment you would have faced by leaving, I will make sure I double it. You think you’ve seen me at my worst, Louis, but trust me you haven’t seen anything yet. And I’m not afraid to take myself down with you”  
“I don’t doubt how horrible you are, Blair,” he said calmly. Why did he sound so calm when she had threatened to ruin him, “but I also know you won’t do anything.”  
“And why is that?” Blair asked, trying not to let her fear show in her voice or body. Louis produced a file and her heart sank. Files meant a paper trail, which is never good. He handed it to Blair without a word. Her hand flew to her mouth as she shuffled through pages and pages of information that could ruin everyone she cared about, “Most of this isn’t true.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Louis replied, “What isn’t true is faked well enough to stand up to scrutiny, and enough of it is true that no one will bother to check the rest. Your one redeeming quality is how much you care about your friends. You might not care if you go down, but you won’t destroy them. It’s over Blair.”  
So she let Louis take her from her only obvious path of escape. She faked smiles and goodbyes to well-wishers who didn’t have a clue. She even managed to fool Serena. As she left for her honeymoon, she saw Dan step out of a cab.


	2. Chapter 2

Everyone tried to warn her. Chuck, Serena, her mother… even Dan had tried to break them up. But she was so in love with the man she thought he was, and the idea of being a princess that she didn’t listen.  
So when Louis insisted on all these new rules, she didn’t even try to resist. She had a handler who was supposed to follow her everywhere . “like Dorota,” she had tried to say. Like Dorota, if Dorota was a spy. She was not to leave New York without explicit permission from either Louis or his mother and she was not allowed to leave the country without one of them accompanying her. She was not allowed to find her own employment or go back to NYU. Any children they had would be under his custody in the event of divorce, though Blair doubted that would be a problem since Louis hadn’t touched her romantically since before the wedding. And finally, her old phone number was disconnected and no one outside of Monaco’s elite were allowed to have the new one.  
The old Blair would have thrown a fit. She would have ranted about being an independent, modern woman who could have any job or friends she wanted. She would have ran, or gotten and annulment or done something. But instead, she just sat mutely as the details of her new life were dictated to her.  
Her friends would be so disappointed in her. you’re doing this for them, she reminded herself, and it’s only a few years. Initially, Louis said they’d only have to stay married for a single year, just long enough to make the public believe they had been happy when they got married. Only long enough for it to only be a minor scandal, not total social suicide. But then they found the polls.  
It seemed ever since the wedding, bets were being placed on how long it would be until Blair either ran away or had an affair. The bets were not good. Most people thought her marriage wouldn’t even last the winter.  
“I tried to warn you, Louis,” his mother chided.  
“I know,” he replied. It was as if Blair wasn’t even there when they got like this. It was like they were already divorced in his head, and her still being there was just an annoying technicality.  
“In any case, you are married now, and you will have to stay married until this,” she gestured vaguely in Blair’s direction, “dies down.”  
“That could take years,” Louis protested.  
“Yes,” she agreed, “Certainly more than the year we were planning on.”  
“How long?”  
“It’s hard to say. Assuming your bride remains scandal free, maybe 3 years. But we know how unlikely that is.”  
Louis rubbed his temples, “So I am stuck with her for at the least the next three years because of some stupid online bets?”  
“If any of them are right, or god forbid it’s shorter than any of them, it will be a PR nightmare. I’m also afraid you will have to stay together for most it.”  
“We’re staying in New York,” Blair said suddenly, “We aren’t needed in Monaco, and I have a life here. We’re staying in New York.”  
“Miss Waldorf, I assure you that you will not be going anywhere without our express permission.”  
“It’s in the prenup,” Blair replied, smugness creeping into her voice for the first time in months, “I am allowed to live where I choose, with or without Louis. We added it in during one of our good months where we thought we could make this work even if we were apart.”  
Mrs. Grimaldi rubbed her temples, “Is it true?”  
“…Yes,” Louis said after a second, “I meant to take it out, but it must have slipped my mind.”  
“So I will be staying in Manhattan,” Blair repeated, “Unless you want to void the whole prenup, that is?”  
“You won’t get out of this that easily, I assure you,” Mrs. Grimaldi replied, “But I suppose I will have to let you stay in New York. But here are your rules.”  
So essentially, Blair was put under glorified house arrest. At least Lily had been able to call whoever she wanted and entertain. Blair would kill to be able to at least hold a gala, but Louis had adamantly refused any hosting on her part.  
“I can’t pretend to stand you publical’ly for the entire course of a party,” he had said. Blair would have cried, but his petty words werent enough to shock her anymore. So she had gone on her honeymoon a captive woman and tried to forget all she was leaving behind.  
She was mostly successful until she actually returned. Three weeks early, in fact. It seems that even the tropics could become a prison if you were with someone like Louis. They both agreed to end their trip early and crafted a story about work that needed his attention in New York.  
Blair almost called Serena until she remembered she couldn’t. She couldn’t a lot of things now. But figuring out how to live the next three years was something she had to figure out as it happened. If the last year had taught her anything, it was the planning was useless. Blair had tried to plan her life down to the minute for the entire last year, and it had led her to Louis. It seemed like the way out of it would have to be spontaneity. She looked at the gossip girl blast again before stepping into her new home on the Upper East Side. Let’s see if trading in her Constance uniform for a tiara is all it’s cracked up to be. Blair already knew the answer.

Spotted: Princess B dodging all her old cohorts. It seems like becoming royalty has made B think she can put us all behind her. Oh B, don’t you know your past will always catch up with you?

After Serena explained that the honeymoon was supposed to last another month, they decided the best course of action was to meet. Dan called Nate and Serena called Chuck. Dan hoped that helping Blair would be enough to keep the peace between them for the time being.  
“It’s possible she just got a new phone,” Nate said, always the voice to reason to Serena’s worst case scenario.  
“And not tell anyone? Unlikely,” Chuck replied.  
“I think the answer is pretty obvious. Louis is trying to isolate her,” Serena said.  
“But why?”  
“Because she said she loved Chuck during their wedding, why else” Serena replied.  
Dan always knew he was an outsider, but he felt like one more than ever during times like this. When they were all together and scheming, Dan felt like he had “interloper” tattooed on his forehead. He felt the same way the first time Serena relapsed. Sometimes he longed for the days when their worst problem was drugs. He’d never know any of them as well they knew each other. As Nate, Chuck and Serena argued about Blair’s past and how it was affecting her present, Dan felt more out of the loop than ever.  
He didn’t think it was possible to know less about a woman than he had about Serena, but as Serena and Chuck debated the merits of breaking her out like she had done for Serena in middle school, he realized he didn’t actually know anything about Blair Waldorf. It didn’t matter right now because he was already in love, but Dan really should try to fall for less secretive women in the future.  
“What about a coded message?” Nate asked.  
“None of us can craft a code like Blair can,” Chuck replied, “I’m sure it’d get cracked before it even reached her.”  
“Guys,” Dan said. The way they looked him, he was sure they felt the same things about him that he felt about himself, “I hate to be the one to suggest this, but what if she really is just moving on from us? I mean, she is a princess now.”  
“I can’t believe you’d say that,” Serena said, “You were the one who was worried, and you think she’s just dropping us?”  
“I’m not sure,” Dan relented, “But I think it’s a possibility, and at this point we shouldn’t rule anything out.”  
“I can’t believe-” Serena started to say before she was interrupted by a blast, “Oh my god.”  
“What?”  
“Blair moved out,” Serena replied simply.  
“That doesn’t make any sense. She loves that house, and there’s more than enough room for Louis there.” Nate said.  
“Unless of course someone doesn’t want anyone to know where she is,” Chuck replied, “Still think this is by choice?”  
“It’s looking less likely,” Dan admitted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another chapter of exposition! I promise something actually interesting will happen next time.


End file.
